Summary
Available by end of October
The case no longer needs to be made that burnout is a syndrome with far-reaching implications (Koenig, 2018). We now exist in a time where innovative programs and interventions have been and continue to be developed to combat the systemic influences of burnout and enhance clinician wellbeing. Based on a review of cross-disciplinary literature and lessons learned through the development of an existing physician wellness program, this presentation aims to engage participants in learning novel approaches to foster clinician wellbeing. In lieu of the traditional view of burnout as a set of deficits and wellbeing as the antithesis of burnout, we will highlight burnout as moral injury and loss of purpose and will highlight strategies for promoting “The Joy in Practice” rather than strategies for solely ameliorating burnout or promoting wellness. We’ll convene our attention on joy as a mode of “assets-based thinking” that harnesses strengths to be developed rather than problems to be solved (Johnson, 2020). Interventions focused on joy, purpose, and hope broaden attention and thinking, and as an emotion, joy persists longer than negative emotions and is shown to increase one’s capacity for affective empathy. Joy is so much more than just the experience of, or the state of happiness. It is a discreet positive emotion, and there are ways to assess it, foster it, teach it, and embody it (Watkins, 2018). Building upon the IHI’s framework (Perlo, 2017) to “Improve the Joy in Work”
Objectives
- Understand the utility of and strategies for shifting the focus on clinician burnout and wellbeing from deficit-focused to strengths-based joy-promotion.
- Learn ways to assess for joy and purpose as an indication of clinician wellbeing.
- Identify steps to engage leadership in demonstrating that joy in practice is a systemically shared responsibility.
